The Serviceberry

An Economy of Gifts and Abundance

By: Robin Wall Kimmerer

Narrated by: John Burgoyne, Robin Wall Kimmerer

Brought to you by Penguin.

From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Braiding Sweetgrass, an inspiring vision of how to reorient our lives around gratitude, reciprocity and community

As indigenous scientist and author of Braiding Sweetgrass Robin Wall Kimmerer harvests serviceberries alongside the birds, she considers the ethic of reciprocity that lies at the heart of the gift economy. How, she asks, can we learn from indigenous wisdom and the plant world to reimagine what we value most?

Our economy is rooted in scarcity, competition, and the hoarding of resources, and we have surrendered our values to a system that actively harms what we love. Meanwhile, the serviceberry’s relationship with the natural world is an embodiment of reciprocity, interconnectedness, and gratitude. The tree distributes its wealth—its abundance of sweet, juicy berries—to meet the needs of its natural community. And this distribution ensures its own survival.

The Serviceberry is an antidote to the broken relationships and misguided goals of our times, and a reminder that “hoarding won’t save us, all flourishing is mutual.”

©2024 Robin Wall Kimmerer (P)2024 Penguin Audio

Critic reviews

The time you’ll spend reading this book will, like the time spent picking wild berries, nourish your soul, heart, and mind. I hope to give this book to everybody (Anthony Doerr)

The Serviceberry is a gem of a book. It invites us to think again about economics, and imagine another way of relating to one another based on generosity, kindness, interconnectedness, and restraint. The book reminds us that how we think, and the stories we tell, shape how we live – and it’s high time we thought and lived differently, with new stories, about our place in nature. (James Rebanks)

An uplifting, open-hearted little book that asks us to reframe our relationships in the world as ones of easy generosity. To be wealthy, explains Robin Wall Kimmerer, is to have enough to share: give all that you have, and take only what you need (Cal Flyn)

This wise little book asks us to escape our doomed extractive economy, learning from the cooperative circularity of living systems and the sustainable stewardship of indigenous cultures (Gaia Vince)

Robin Wall Kimmerer's call to accommodate ecology and moneyless exchange into our economics is beautiful, radical and true. Her persuasive argument is a gift in itself (Philip Marsden)

A wonderful little book which imagines a kinder, sharing world where everybody has enough to eat and nature is respected and cherished (Dave Goulson)